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Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Do you remember when you were say, twelve years old and what it was like? That's not a time that I remember well. I remember myself at the age of fourteen though.

My daughter, who's twelve years old now has gone from sweet and helpful to someone that I don't recognize. I'm not talking about whether she's a good kid or not because she is. I mean that being twelve has brought its change of attitude and behaviour.

What do I see now that drives me bonkers?

The chatting on the phone that doesn't want to end even while surfing and the excessive texting at all times; How do they manage to do 500 or more texts in one day? What do they have to talk about after texting and going to school with each other all day?

The twirling of the hair with her fingers at all times; What is it about the playing with the hair stuff ?She is constantly grooming her hair or changing the style.

The amount of bathroom time; What the heck is she doing in there? She doesn't have to shave her underarm or her legs...oh yeah, she's still talking on the phone.

The annoyingly loud ring tones for notifications that go on and on as if she's deaf; She hears her phone but why does it need to be so loud? It's an announcement not a notification. Wrong she's listening to the song...geez!

The brushing off of her duties or doing a crappy job in her haste to go and hang out. Friends come first. Of course, what else!

I must have done some of these things except the cell phone issues. I'm sure my mom must have just rolled her eyes and sighed as I often do in my case. No amount of talking works right now. Everything just goes in one ear and out the other as quickly. I see your lips moving but what did you say?

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Tonight, was the kind of night that I hoped to come across only once in my life. It's the kind of night that every parent dreads because it's an indication that some of the choices our kids make are absolutely not in their best interest. There it was, my call to nurse him was soon to begin unbeknownst to me.

See, my son came home from a party drunk. I had already gone to bed when he showed up late and got me out of bed to let him in. Awakened out of bed at the time when I most needed to sleep, I was unable to return to that bliss. I spent the night surfing the net until further into the wee hours of the night when tiredness called me back to sleep. Finally.

In the morning, coming awake slowly, I flew out of bed with the urging and shouted calls to come. When I reached the bathroom, my son lay on the floor in a cold sweat where he had fallen after getting out of bed to use the bathroom. He could barely speak and was noise sensitive because he begged me to stop talking. I put a pillow under his head and tried to think what to do. I grabbed his rag and wetting it with cold water, applied it to his forehead for a short while. I used that damp, cold rag to wipe his body as he lay prone. I recognized the sign of high and then a drop in blood pressure that was causing him to sweat. I got my blood pressure monitor and checked his bp a number of times and sure enough his pressure was dropping too fast.

I kept monitoring his bp and using cold water to wipe the sweat from his body. As I stood there, I called on the angels to surround him and Mother God to heal him. He was too weak to move but after awhile he insisted that he wanted to get up. With strong self will, he propelled himself out of there and into his room. I got some cushions and placed them under his feet to raise them higher than his heart. Every ten minutes I kept checking his bp for signs that his normal rate was returning.

In hindsight, my first call should have been for an ambulance to take him to emergency since I was unsure why he was in the condition that he was. Apparently he had gone to the bathroom earlier and had vomited. From there, he had started to feel worse and had fallen down. Hence, the calls to me.

I know what it's like in the emergency part of the hospital. I've been there in many capacities in my life. I've watched from the back as a parent with a sick child brought in by ambulance. It's not a pretty sight. When one comes into emergency with a complaint, after taking that person's info, they are then directed to the waiting area until called to be seen by a doctor.

The same occurs when you arrive by ambulance. The difference is that the medics give your info and vital signs to the triage team and then you wait and wait until a doctor can see you. Based on priority, you eventually are looked at.

My call about what to do as a parent is my own. Someone else in a similar position could call an ambulance and let the paramedics who are trained in emergency situations handle it.

Suffice to say that, throughout the day he did a lot of vomiting. He was dehydrated so he drank lots of water which is good for the body. Eventually, he was able to drink some soup, a little at a time to enable his system to accept it. He slept a lot too since he was tired and had spent the day indisposed.

The lesson that I hope that he takes with him is to make different choices for himself. To recognize opportunities that support him instead. He's growing and even as an adult those things that cause us pain enable us to see life from another point of view. They are just different experiences that we choose from to see the world.